Aero To Be Unavailable To Pirates 630
An anonymous reader writes "Users thinking of pirating the next version of Windows may have a surprise in store: no Aero for you. The upcoming Microsoft OS will run a check to ensure the copy was legally purchased. If it comes up short, the shiniest part of the OS will not be available." From the article: "At first an optional program, the piracy check eventually became mandatory for many types of Windows XP downloads, but was not required to run any aspect of the operating system itself. Microsoft has identified reducing piracy as a key way for the company to grow its sales of Windows, which is already used on more than 90 percent of personal computers. But it's not just pirates who will be blocked from Windows' fanciest graphics. The Aero display also won't be available to those who buy Windows Vista Basic, the low-end consumer version of the operating system."
What does this say about Vista? (Score:1, Interesting)
Hold up... (Score:4, Interesting)
So, what makes bubble buttons and transparency effects something I should want? Is Microsoft trying to bank on GUI wiener-size competition to get people to pay hundreds of dollars for a legtimate installation of the OS?
Oh, yeah...they're going to try to stick it in the gamer market by making everyone upgrade for DX10...which will likely only give you full performance on Trusted Hardware, just like the high-res video bunk.
Let's hear it for Microsoft. 1) My GUI looks better than yours. 2) DX10 is so much more efficient, it almost makes up for the performance lost by binding 70% of your system resources to the GUI that looks better than yours. 3) We don't like your installation of Linux on your other partition, so we're using Oklahoma power to reach in and delete it all, and install this cool IDE device driver from StarForce. 4) You're welcome!
Re:I had plans for those CPU cycles anyway (Score:2, Interesting)
The biggest killer of my uptime for Windows XP has been the security updates that require a restart in order for them to be installed. If it wasn't for these, gawd knows how long my uptime would be.
Corporate version? (Score:5, Interesting)
If Microsoft starts demanding activation from corporate customers, I think things will get interesting and amusing all at the same time.
Still won't work (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I had the same idea. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft Monopoly & Windows Genuine Advant (Score:2, Interesting)
Some time ago, I might have read that to mean that we as a nation had bigger concerns, and thus the administration had bigger concerns, and that the concern was over the people getting away with antitrust violations.
Now, however, it is the administration that is the concern.
In your heart, you know he might [google.com]
Re:Thank you Microsoft (Score:3, Interesting)
And besides, if you're a "customer" who only uses software he can pirate, I'm sure MS will really miss having you as a customer.
No OEM versions for the Macintosh (Score:3, Interesting)
As Apple isn't installing OEM versions of the Windows OS, any OEM version running on a Mac has to be illegal. The Genuine Advantage check could easily determine if the OS is running on a Mac and if the OS is an OEM version. If so, it could flag that the version is not correctly licensed.
Re:I had the same idea. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft Monopoly & Windows Genuine Advant (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft Monopoly & Windows Genuine Advant (Score:5, Interesting)
-matthew
Stick with Win2K? (Score:3, Interesting)
It will run practically everything that XP will run, and does not have that cartoon interface by default. Win2K also takes slightly less resources. I also think Win2K works well with Samba.
My guess is: it will probably be supported by hw/sw vendors for a few more years, at least.
Re:Yes, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
*chuckles*
Re:because you won't want to (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:A Pirate In Need is a Pirate Indeed (Score:3, Interesting)
The "educational" and "non-profit" excuses are VERY meaningful. They were original exceptions to this whole robber baron mentality that seems to pervade creativity these days. The idea isn't to be a Rockerfeller wannabe even if you happen to be in it just for the money.
These overhanded ideas are wrongheaded even for those of us that make money off of all of this.
Alternatively: needlessly forcing people to "do without" is also undermining your own future marketshare. You gain NOTHING in the immediate term and may actually lose something in the long term.
Most real creative people realize this.
Re:So unplug the damn thing (Score:2, Interesting)
This is helpful because it limits the amount of software trying to access the internet. I mean, does Word or Excel seriously need to access the internet every time it starts up? No!
I think I'm going to wait this one out for a bit- until I can ensure that my data isn't going anywhere I don't want it to.
Microsoft doesn't want that (Score:3, Interesting)
But they don't want that. Microsoft has never really tried to cut off illegal users in all these years, although it could've done so at any point. They were content with that fact that piracy made their products spread and made them a de factor standard.
They cannot afford to actually hurt Windows users, even non-paying ones. The very fact that they're starting to do things like this now has a clear meaning for me: their sales are going down.
Their revenue is starting to take a turn for the worse to the point they have to start tightening the knot. As long as money was coming in thick they could afford to ignore the pirates. They don't ignore them anymore. Think about it. Why not? Dunno, it's just a speculation, but it makes damn good sense.
As for the pink bunny screen, no sane software produced would do that in a million years, for exactly the reasons above. You can be pretty sure that someone you embarass like that will NEVER buy. A MAYBE is better than NEVER. As long as there's a chance in hell of a purchase, they'll let the pirate be, no matter how loud they cry "thief" via BSA and all that.
Re:A Pirate In Need is a Pirate Indeed (Score:4, Interesting)
It's an interesting way of looking at this. But I would be surprised if that is ENTIRELY the intent. Why? Commoditization.
Microsoft seems to be doing a lot to try and avoid the perception that an OS is a commodity. A hardware platform that became a commodity environment meant IBM lost control of the market. And that is the real threat from the likes of Linux, *BSD, etc. The last thing Microsoft wants is for a perception that the entire platform - hardware and OS - is immaterial or at least a very distant second to an application. Remember that this was the mantra Netscape liked to push before Microsoft performed its historical turn-on-a-dime strategy shift. And one might even note that the vast majority of consumers are almost to this point anyway (how many average users really understand the implications of an OS).
Now - its entirely possible that despite Microsoft's best efforts, the market is pushing in that direction anyway. This may be a slight capitulation to this kind of pressure. But I would not expect Microsoft to do anything that would drive home the commodity perception until well after it has already taken hold of the market. I doubt the market is at that point yet.
If anything, this is simply part of Microsoft's attempt to avoid their OS becoming a commodity. It started with WinXP. Before then, who really cared about "piracy"? After all, the major players (OEMs, business, etc.) already pay. The "Linux Refund Day" exercise showed what a consumer Windows license is worth. Up to a certain point in history, accepting "piracy" helped ensure Windows continued to proliferate as a common environment while not getting in the way of paying customers. Introducing rudimentary copy protection didn't happen until commodity OS platforms started to really gain attention. And even then, it didn't really do much to stem "piracy". But it did drive home the point that Windows wasn't a freebie - keeping it out of the same mental pigeon-hole IT managers stick "freeware" commodity platforms... specifically Linux.
Aero is not an important component. But it is the more visceral piece - it's prominant in screenshots and marketing. Linking copy protection to this component continues to push the message that Windows is something special. And if for some reason a paying customer runs afoul of that copy protection and Aero shuts down, they will likely still be able to limp along doing their important activities until the situation can be resolved - perhaps only annoying them instead of really upsetting them and producing more fodder for various switcher campaigns.
Aero isn't just eye candy (Score:3, Interesting)
This means that you'll no longer have Windows' ugly "Large Fonts" mode for high-dpi monitors (like those on a laptop that display 1600x1200 in a 14" LCD) - rather, you'll simply tell Windows the DPI of your monitor and it will be able to scale the entire system UI to fit - from icons to text to graphical elements in the GUI. Instead of having to choose between a) everything being really small, b) using a lower, non-native resolution that causes your LCD to become blurry, or c) putting up with "Large Fonts" mode, you will now simply enjoy the same-sized interface but with greater clarity.
This seems like a minor point, but it removes a huge barrier that, in my opinion, has plagued applications since day 1: dependence on pixel size. This is the most important aspect of Aero, and it really is something MS can be proud of if they pull it off. Licensing, pirating, and "activation" issues aside, the Aero interface in Vista will be something that every teenage girl and geek alike will want, in the end. It will make our computing experience just a little bit better.
Check out this video if you want to understand why Aero really is something important: http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=1146 94 [msdn.com]
Vector icons: http://www.iconbase.com/iconbase/aero-eps.html [iconbase.com]
So let me get this straight (Score:3, Interesting)
So for about two, maybe three weeks "pirates" won't get Aero but the honest guy can't afford to pay full price never gets it?
Yep, that sounds like the M$ I know and love...
Re: Yep - and they're already hostile enough! (Score:1, Interesting)
That all worked great until the iPods started failing. According to Apple they don't have enough cooling for the harddrive for that type of use since it is mounted in rubber to protect it from shocks. That was annoying, but the iPods did get us through a tough couple of months.
For the other offices since we didn't have as many UNIX guys at them, we ended-up having to buy new copies of Windows for them. I really hated to have to give Microsoft money twice for screwing us over, but we didn't have enough manpower to do anything differently.
As a result of Microsoft's unethical and illegal actions, our CEO of over 20 years was fired due to problems with lost sales, late shipments, and upset customers. It was sad to see a 30 year employee lose his job like that because of Microsoft.
Re:Microsoft Monopoly & Windows Genuine Advant (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yes, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft Monopoly & Windows Genuine Advant (Score:3, Interesting)
What this means is that low-volume hardware becomes instantly more expensive, and amateur driver developers are locked out. You won't even be loading a test driver into your system without getting it signed. That should make driver dev a whole lot of fun.
What do you get out of this? Why, DRM, and nothing else, of course.
This is yet another reason that I *must* avoid Vista in my organization. Some of the software that is critical here uses unsigned drivers. Some hardware is out of production, and the latest driver is years old. I'm not throwing out my infrastructure just because Microsoft decided to sleep with Hollywood; I'll be throwing out Microsoft, because it's far less expensive to do.